wired.co.uk Archives - 02 August 2015, Sunday

Also novel to the tool, is a kind of women's sexual health social network. There are plenty of facts available, but in addition it connects users up with a wider community so they can ask questions and share experiences. This is where the app could stand to make a big impact. Unplanne...

Head over to the WIRED Money 2015 hub for more coverage of the thought leaders and innovators speaking at this year's summit. When you get into Bitcoin, you fall down a rabbit hole, says Peter Smith, CEO of Blockchain, speaking at WIRED Money 2015. You start talking about Bitcoin all ...

If you only read the financial press, you might assume the only way to 'master' Bitcoin is to go back in time to November 29, 2013 when it hit an all-time record price of $1,242 (£808), and sell. That volatility is irrelevant, said Antonopoulos, when it comes to the long-term future o...

One of the things that will increase confidence in Bitcoin is the extensive startup and VC investment in the cryptocurrencies infrastructure that is currently "exploding". Once upon a time there was only one Bitcoin exchange, but now there are many and they're getting better and bette...

First, it distributes transaction-clearing responsibilities across a broadly distributed network of computers known as "miners", eliminating the need for expensive centralised third parties such as banks and payments processors to authenticate and verify online exchanges of value. Any...

Related:

A collection of live corals collected from two reefs off the Singapore have been transported to the Horniman Museum in London as part of the experiment designed to discern what conditions are most conducive to coral reproduction. The plight of coral reefs is well understood and well p...

US technology company Dell's partnership with bitcoin wallet and exchange service Coinbase has allowed it to become the first major retailer to accept bitcoin in the UK. These measures, which allow both customers in Canada and the UK the option of paying with bitcoin, are, according t...

Bitcoin could end up being the MySpace of cryptocurrency, but the underlying technology powering new payment methods is here to stay. That's according to Brock Pierce, a tech entrepreneur with his eyes firmly fixed on cryptocurrencies . "By having a baseline protocol that allows you t...

Subdermal NFC chip implants Mr Bitcoin The Dutch founder of a bitcoin ATM firm has gone to great lengths to highlight the digital currency -- implanting near-field communication (NFC) chips under his skin so he can use his hand to access his Bitcoin wallet. Martijn Wismeijer is the fo...

The attacker specifically targeted a collection of bitcoin mining "pools" -- bitcoin-producing cooperatives in which users contribute their computers' processing power and are rewarded with a cut of the resulting cryptocurrency the pool produces. The redirection technique tricked the ...

Bitcoin is an increasingly popular currency driven by a network of computers spread across the internet. With just 13 million bitcoins in circulation, it can be hard for new companies to buy large chunks of the digital currency without driving prices up. But the arrangement with Drape...

Although increasingly popular, Bitcoin has long been troubled by the ogres of criminal activity and poorly secured exchanges. But regulation continues to be a highly controversial topic, as a group of researchers in The Netherlands recently discovered. About three months ago, five of ...

But critics "systematically underestimated" the power of these technologies as platforms, he says. Platforms get developed. It can be hard to see where the improvements are coming from, but they happen nonetheless. "They get better at an exponential rate and all these criticisms go aw...

Bitcoin's scripting language can handle transactions far more complex than simply "send money from X to Y". A payment can be made automatically the moment the majority of parties involved approve it -- useful to release Kickstarter funding or deal with business expenditures. Escrows c...

"However, we pride ourselves on our compliance even in the absence of regulatory guidance, and look forward to a point in the future when the HMRC and FCA may choose to regulate Bitcoin as a currency as we would be ready and confident about our immediate compliance," explains Coinfloo...

The first IPO made through the exchange was for Ubitex , a service that allowed bitcoin traders to meet face-to-face to buy and sell the cryptocurrency. Although it raised more than 1,100 bitcoins, the service never had any success and its founder disappeared. Since then, some legitim...

Related:

The latest in cuddly toy tech has emerged in the form of HuGGler, an interactive monkey-companion capable of recognising non-verbal acts that are tied to the emotional state of a person. The Singaporean toy is designed to not only entertain, but help with the diagnosis of Alzheimer's ...

$10 million is a significant chunk of the total revenues Mt. Gox is thought to have earned since it was founded in 2010. The company has earned between $8 million (£5 million) and $9 million (£5.6 million) in US dollar trades, and another 250,000 bitcoins from digital currency transac...

Thomson Reuters has teamed up with the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (ICMEC) to form the Digital Economy Task Force, which aims to address some of the risks surrounding digital currencies and the wider digital economy. "This is a complex issue," said Ernie Alle...

Related:

The question is: will eBay come to Bitcoin's rescue? eBay doesn't allow payments via Bitcoin, and the company does "not have any changes planned to our Accepted Payments Policy," according to a note sent to Wired.com by company spokeswoman Kari Ramirez. But you can still buy and sell ...

Showing some great forward thinking, Oxford Dictionaries has also chosen to include "MOOC ", which is the acronym for massive open online course, and "space tourism " to its online word catalogue. MOOCs are yet to really reach the mainstream, but are likely to become increasingly impo...

In April 2012, the web site Betcoin lost 3,171 bitcoins when someone hacked into three separate computers to rob the online gambling destination. With just a few mouse clicks, the thief made off with a load of digital currency that's now worth close to $400,000 (£258,000). But the mon...

Venture-backed Bitcoin exchange CoinLab has announced it will start to incubate new Bitcoin businesses, starting with enterprise-scale mining company Alydian. CoinLab won't be providing any capital or mentoring to existing businesses. Instead it will come up with new ideas for busines...

Senior members of the Foreign Exchange Administration and Policy Department concluded that because there were no existing laws that apply to Bitcoin and the fact that the cryptocurrency "straddles multiple financial facets", a wide range of Bitcoin activities should be illegal. These ...

Campus Party España/Flickr/CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 An unidentified staffer at the ESEA gaming network has been fired for allegedly turning the company's software into a secret Bitcoin-mining Trojan. In April, ESEA (the E-Sports Entertainment Association) admitted that its software -- which se...

Related:

When asked whether he thought enough people in Africa knew about and trusted Bitcoin, Braendgaard acknowledged that understanding of the currency was fairly limited at the moment. "There is some knowledge of it amongst more educated people. But ordinary people I explain it to instinct...

On 1 July, they filed forms with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, saying they intend to offer shares of their Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust to the public. They plan to register 1 million shares -- each one representing .20 bitcoins -- in the trust, which will trade at $20 (£13.2 ...

in Canary Wharf, Peter Vessenes regaled about the unstoppable power of the crytocurrency. Almost as a demonstration that the traditional financial sector en mass is not quite there yet, however, no one in the audience grabbed the Bitcoin Vessenes made available when he put the details...

California's Department of Financial Institutions has issued a cease and desist letter to the Bitcoin Foundation for "allegedly engaging in the business of money transmission without a license or proper authorisation," according to Forbes . The news comes after Bitcoin held its "Futur...

When Bitcoin users engage with one another online there is currently no way for them to verify the identity of the individual they are doing business with. Whilst this is the core attraction for many users, this needs to change if the currency is to achieve widespread acceptance. Howe...